


Towards the Sun

by cadmean



Category: The Malazan Book of the Fallen - Steven Erikson
Genre: Deadhouse Gates spoilers, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 03:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17911025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadmean/pseuds/cadmean
Summary: Blood ran thick in the streets of Aren, though Surly’s own hands were clean.And Dancer, she knew, would take issue with that.





	Towards the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I love a coherent, internally consistent timeline!  
> SE & ICE: new phone who dis

The throne room of the Holy Falah’d was empty and, in stark contrast to the rest of the palace, it was almost entirely devoid of blood. Surly supposed that it came down to pure coincidence more than anything else; the T’lan Imass had risen in the early hours of the morning and had found all but the most diligent of servants and a bare smattering of guards still asleep in their beds. Only the the Holy Protector himself had been in his throne room, having fallen asleep right on his throne the night before. It had become his final resting place, and Surly found that to be a particularly fitting twist of irony. The Falah’dan had thought themselves unassailable, and they had paid the price for that arrogant presumption.

The city itself had fared no better. Blood ran like water through the gutters lining the streets of Aren, before cloying together with the omnipresent desert dust to create a mess of barely-coagulated reddish-brown clots. Disgusting, Kellanved would have called it, which just went to show how fundamentally their outlook on matters of empire differed. Surly took no joy from the sight, but she did very much feel satisfaction for a job well done.

It would take decades before the insurgents in Seven Cities would recover from the blow they had been dealt here, and by then Surly would have long since stomped out any leftover resistance. Not a clean victory, certainly, but a decisive one.

The soft tapping of footsteps suddenly echoed from the hallway just outside of the throne room, filtering in through the balconies connecting the upper level of the throne room to the halls beyond.  Surly drew a startled breath — the sound was painfully familiar, and that she was hearing it at all was as deliberate as the slow grind of the executioner’s axe against its sheath.

_Perhaps not as immediately fatal, though._

Even so, the weight of the protective bracers wrapped around her wrists was unusually comforting as Surly crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face the door.

It took another long, awfully quiet moment before the ceiling-height halves of the gate-like doors were finally pushed open, revealing the cloaked, hooded figure of Dancer stepping through. He didn’t bother to force the doors closed again behind himself, which in Surly’s estimation was a good sign; he also hadn’t bothered to say anything yet, which was somewhat less fortunate.

How he had managed to arrive here so quickly was a mystery in and of itself. The last Surly’s Clawmasters had been able to inform her, both Kellanved and Dancer were on at least the other side of the continent. _But that hadn’t ever stopped either of them before, so why should it now?_ Surly grimaced, her features once again settling into the frown she had taken her name from.

“Dancer,” she called out after another moment of watching his approach, and the hooded figure came to a halt just short of the center of the throne room. “I didn’t expect so see you here. Where’s Kellanved?”

“Elsewhere,” Dancer replied, waving a hand in dismissal. A question that he must have grown sick of long ago; but then the two founders of the empire were rarely seen far from the other. “But in any case I’m here for you, Surly, not him. What have you _done_?”

Dancer tossed his hood back then, revealing a face lined with exhaustion, the shadows under his eyes so deep that in that first flicker of the torches they appeared to have swallowed half his face. When he walked over to her — not yet within arm reach but dangerously close even so — his gait was ever so slightly unsteady, evidently favoring his left leg and trying his best to hide it.

Surly took it all in with a raised eyebrow and a little shrug. She spread her arms, encompassing the blood still pooling on and around the throne and then beyond, to the city outside. “I did what I thought necessary,” she said, her tone steady and even and as uncompromising as she could make it. “You’d have done the same in my position, I’m sure.”

Dancer’s eyes narrowed, and he took another angry step towards her before visibly reining himself in. “This isn’t how the empire conducts its campaigns, Surly. The T’lan Imass—they made no distinction between rebels and civilians, fighters and children. This wasn’t a well-earned victory; it was plain slaughter.”

“It was _necessary_ ,” she repeated. “Think: Not a single one of our soldiers was lost. Not a single drop of blood was spilled on our side — is that not worth anything to you? To Kellanved, to Dassem?”

His eyebrows rose briefly at that before, just as quickly, he schooled his face back into an expression of cold disapproval. _Hit a nerve, did I?_

“And what of the citizens who lost their lives to the Imass? The children, the merchants, the beggars? I walked through Aren’s streets; I’ve seen what the rest of the palace looks like. What you did was—I should kill you now and be done with it,” Dancer snarled, though he made no move towards the blades nestled in his baldrics.

Surly prided herself on her ability to keep a calm demeanor even under adversarial conditions. It was a skill she had come to hone over the years, forced to accept that a swift knife to the gut was not the all-purpose solution she had once thought it to be. And so she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough that she could taste blood and did none of the things her instincts told her to, because this was neither the time nor the place—but not much longer now. Soon enough.

With a poise that Tarel would have envied her for, Surly raised her chin. “But you won’t kill me, Dancer, will you.” It wasn’t a question — she knew him too well for that — and judging by the slight scowl pulling down his lips, her words had hit just where she wanted them to. “I’d leave too big a hole in the empire, and you and Kellanved have neither the patience nor the people to fill it.”

He continued to glare at her for a breath longer – then, after an almost annoyed-looking shrug, Dancer inclined his head in agreement. Hands still held at his sides almost demonstratively lazily, he wandered over to one of the large windows lining the sides of the throne room.

Whether it was idiocy or arrogance that made him turn his back on her Surly would never be able to say for sure, but she knew that for her part it was simple expedience that stopped her from snapping out her palm and breaking his neck from behind right then and there. _Neither the time nor place_. She joined him at the window instead, and together they looked out across the eerily empty city below.

“The empire doesn’t — and has never, not _once_ — warred against civilians, Surly,” Dancer began again, sounding terribly tired to Surly’s ears. “I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve our fair share of bloodshed in our, ah, illustrious history, such as it is; but never have we actively involved innocent people in our battles. It’s—This is not what Kellanved and I envisioned, when we first set about establishing the empire.”

He was leaning on the window sill when she turned to look at him, and he had his head in his hands, fingers white-knuckled and buried in the too-long hair. Her tongue was heavy with all the things she could have told him then — she and Dancer, they had always seen each other more clearly than either of them had preferred to — but the thought of why he had come here, and the betrayal that lay ahead, held her back. Surly swallowed, the unsaid words like glass shards in her throat.

“Tell Kellanved that if he takes so much issue with how I run things, he is more than welcome to actually handle the empire’s affairs himself, rather than running off to—” Surly paused briefly, then waved a hand in open dismissal. “Wherever it is the two of you go. It certainly isn’t the war room.”

To her great surprise Dancer lifted his head and smiled at that — and despite the gathering heat of the late morning, Surly felt a chill at the brittle sight. “Don’t make it sound as if you’re too invested in getting Kellanved to take up his duties as emperor again, lest he actually goes and _does_ it.”

 _And we both know an absent emperor is worth more than a bored one_.

His gaze came to rest on a point behind her, eyes narrowing for a moment before he turned back to the window. “A throne soaked in blood. Effective, I suppose, if not particularly appealing.” Dancer glanced sidelong at her now, that unreadable smile still on his lips. “Best not make it a habit.”

 _He couldn’t— They couldn’t know, could they? Impossible._ A particularly sharp intake of breath was all she allowed herself — and it calmed her again quick enough. Only Topper could even begin to guess what she was planning, and Topper, Surly trusted, would not betray her to the very people he had promised her he would help bring down. Either Dancer had developed an affinity for the sort of uncannily accurate guesses Kellanved himself was so fond of, or, more likely, Surly had read entirely too much into his comment. With Seven Cities brought to heel, the empire could focus its whole attention on the campaign in Genabackis — and the sort of war of attrition they had fought here would not do there, she knew.

So Surly returned the smile in kind, and replied, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Silence. Then Dancer nodded, and, for the first time since he’d entered the throne room, Surly saw him visibly relax. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed and, once more favoring his left leg, pushed himself away from the window and began to pad back across the breadth of the hall and towards the large doors.

Surly watched him for a breath. Then, unwilling to let him leave just like that, she called after him, “What happened to you? What are you and Kellanved _doing_?”

Dancer stopped short only a few more lengths away from the door. He took another step forward, then, apparently making up his mind, he turned around to shoot her a sharp little smile. “We’re keeping busy,” was all he said, however. “You know Kellanved. He’s putting a lot of different unrelated little plans into motion, and perhaps they will pan out and perhaps they won’t. But—we’ll all of us see soon enough which way Oponn’s coin falls, I suppose.”

“I’ll—We’ll be seeing you around, then?”

“I’m sure you will.”

She watched him slip through the open door with a grim smile playing around her lips, and as Dancer’s back grew ever smaller in the distance, all Surly could think about was how to best put a knife in it.


End file.
